How Should We Pray and What Should We Pray For?

In the Christian life, sometimes we wonder what exactly is
appropriate for us to pray over. This is important since prayer is when we
engage in conversation with God. In my humble opinion, prayer is equally
important than reading The Bible. After all, The Bible is God’s way of speaking
to us and prayer is our way of speaking to God. If you don’t have that two way
communication, you won’t have a very good relationship with The Lord (or anyone
else for that matter).

Sometimes we think that the content of our prayers really matters,
and it does to a certain extent. For example, you should never pray for someone
you’re angry with to experience misfortune (Proverbs 17:5 Proverbs 24:17, Job
31:29) and you should never pray for the eternal damnation of someone because
that’s something that we know goes against God’s will (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy
2:4, Ezekiel 18:23). There are
certain things that you should not ask God for because the intent is either
evil or selfish as described above.

So now that we’ve gotten the things we shouldn’t pray
for out of the way, what should we pray for? Questions about prayer
abound in the minds of many. Gotquestions.org has several different
articles on the subject. But I’m only going to go into what topics are
appropriate to pray for and the conduct we should have when praying.

1: The Lord’s Prayer Gives
Us A Formula For The Content Of Our Prayers.

During Jesus’ sermon on the mount, Jesus’ disciples asked
Him how they should pray. Jesus’ response was to recite a prayer of His own
which has popularly been dubbed “The Lord’s Prayer”. This prayer is recorded in
Matthew 6:9-13.

“This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in
heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as
we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from the evil one.’” – Matthew 6:9-13

A lot of people recite this prayer over and over and over in
things like certain Rosary prayers in Roman Catholicism. But I don’t think when
Jesus said “this is how you should pray” that He meant “Say everything that I
say verbatim.” Rather I think that he merely meant to give us a list of content
that our prayers should consist of.

For example, we start by acknowledging God’s holiness. This
isn’t something that we necessarily need to say in the prayer, but it is the
attitude we should have going into the prayer session. “Our Father in Heaven,
hallowed be Your name.” Whatever it is that we’re praying for, we should
ask that God’s will be done here on Earth just like His will is done in Heaven
(verse 10). What I mean by that is that when we ask God for something, we
should say that we want it only if it doesn’t interfere with God’s overall plan
for the course of our lives (and possibly for the course of human history as
well), being content that even if God doesn’t give us what we want, His plans
are always better for our lives than our plans. He can see the bigger picture
while we can’t (Isaiah 55:8-9).

We should ask God for “Our daily bread” that is to say, to
ask Him for the things that we need such as food, water, shelter, medicine,
etc. Moreover, we shouldn't worry about these things because God will provide
these things to His children and in fact knows that we need them even before we
ask Him (see Matthew 6:25-34). Of course, God doesn’t always give us what we want.Sometimes we human beings tend to get what we want confused with
what we need. Sometimes what we really need isn’t what we think we need.
We should trust God that He is doing what is best for our lives (Proverbs 3:5),
that He’s working everything for our good (Romans 8:28)…which
is a lot easier to say when it is to do when things are falling apart.

We should ask God to forgive us our sins, but to keep in
mind that God will forgive us in exactly the same way we forgive others (Matthew
6:11 CF. Matthew 6:14-16, Matthew 18:23-35). Moreover, we should ask God to
keep us from situations in which we’ll be tempted, to lead us away from such
things, or at the very least to give us the strength to overcome the temptation
(Matthew 6:12). Our prayers should
also often contain pleas for safety from the demonic forces which wreak havoc on
this world (Matthew 6:13). Psalm
55:22 says “Cast your cares on The Lord and He will sustain you. He will
never let the righteous be shaken.” And 1 Peter 5:7 says “Give all your
worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” The context of these
passages, of course, is spiritual warfare. This falls under that last part of
the Lord’s prayer “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”.

2: In Addition To The
Content Listed In The Lord’s Prayer, We should come to God with whatever
concerns us.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”- Philippians 4:16-17

Don’t really be afraid to ask God for anything. God
loves you and wants to hear from you. Don’t be afraid of thinking that what you
want to ask God is stupid or silly, that it’s insignificant or childish. God’s
Word exhorts us to cast all of our cares onto God. Why? Because He cares
about us. If it’s important to you, it’s important to Him. Why? Because you’re
important to Him. Someone once told me that the worst thing that can happen if
I ask a girl out is that she says no. Well, same with God. Worst thing He’s
going to do if you ask Him for something is not give it to you. God’s not going
to punish you or anything if you ask Him for something others might consider
unworthy to ask of God (e.g for a cake you’ve never baked before to turn out
well). Ask God for anything and everything that bothers you. Ask Him for things
that you want, ask Him for things that you need. However, make sure you don’t
treat God like your personal genie. God does not exist to grant us wishes, but
He does exhort us to come to Him with our wants, needs and worries…as any good
father would. If you don’t believe me, consider the fact that my old Nintendo
64 broke when I was about 12 (I’m 22 now) and I could never get to work until
recently after I prayed about it. I still have some difficulty getting
it on from time to time, but I’m able to get it work the 85% of the time; a
massive improvement from before. God apparently did not consider this request
too trivial to take the time to respond to…which I’m glad for because I was
having a hankering to play a specific game.

Never be hesitant to ask God for something. While others might consider asking for the miraculous repair of a game console, a first time implemented recipe turning out right, or for you to successfully hunt down a deer, God doesn't consider anything to trivial. He cares about you. He wants you to come to Him with anything that might concern you.

3: How Long Should We
Pray?

I used to talk to God for 2 hours every day. I don't do that
anymore. I pray, but I don't have time to spend that long in prayer
anymore. I kind of miss it. During that movie length prayer session, I wasn't
just asking God for things and thanking Him for things (though I certainly did
do that), but I also talked to Him like you would an ordinary person. By that,
I mean my words towards God don’t always start with “Dear Heavenly Father” and
end with “In Jesus’ name, amen.”. If I’m not asking for Him to do specific
things, I just talk to Him causally. It's so refreshing to spend time in
conversation with The Lord.

"And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like
pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not
be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."
- Matthew 6:7-8

Nothing is wrong with a short prayer. Nothing is wrong with
a long prayer either. Jesus’ message here is not that long prayers are
prohibited, rather He’s saying that the duration of our prayers is irrelevant
as to whether they’re answered or not. Our requests are either going to be
granted to us or they aren’t. But if they aren’t, Christ wants us to know that
duration isn’t the reason why we didn’t get what we asked for, that we simply
didn’t pray long enough. I’ve had both long prayers and short prayers answered
before. I’ve also had both long prayers and short prayers denied. I’ve had
prayers that were no more than 10 seconds long answered before. Jesus is right
(as He always is). Duration is irrelevant. You do not increase your chances of
having your prayer answered by asking God for something 1,000 times in a single
hour. But God's not going to reprimand you if you're just super chatty by nature. Your prayer might be long, but as long as you're not praying long because you'll think you'll increase your chances of having your prayer answered, you're fine.